The Dallas daily herald. [volume] (Dallas, Tex.) 1873-1887, 1887-10-22
HARD LINES.
Shocking Life Led by Laborers on the
Panama Canal.


here Sept. 10. SAYS The San Francisco
Examiner. He was braking on the
railway, and resigned his position
several weeks before sailing.
IL left Baltimore last winter" he
said ito look after work. had been
idle for some time and didn't care much
what took hold Of got an offer 10
90 to Panama and brake on the rail-
way, and thinking of what had been
told OF the climate, and being glad
enough to get an opportunity to 90 TO
work, / accepted the offer.
II arrived at Panama in due season,
and was about to begin work two days
after leaving the steamer when was
seized with terrible fever. The air is
thick and unhealthy, and | could
scarcely breathe. was convalescent
at the end of week, but had some
thing OF the appearance of skeleton,
being only ghost of my former self.
cts not necessary to relate my own
experience; what was mine was that Of
everyone who goes there to stay.
Panama comes nearer being Hades
than any place | was ever in. In the
rainy season the colored people die of
like herd of cattle when disease
spreads among them. On one place
on the line daily funeral trains are run.
The cemetery is fourteen miles from
Aspinwall, and in the rainy season l
have seen five trains drive down there.
They have curious way of burying
people there. When the train reaches
the graveyard the corpse is thrown
into hole two or three feet deep, and
the coffin is taken back TO carry some
other poor unfortunate to his last rest
ing place.
IL went down one day to see the
canal laborers at work, and never
will forget what saw there. About
four hundred men were at work in
this one place. Every nationality was
represented. There was the Scandi-
navian toiling in his mechanical way.
the Hibernian was joking while he
shoveled, the African negro, the ia
maica negro, Mexicans, English,
French, Russians, Turks, all were
here, and the John Chinaman, with
his natty cue, worked in broken
hearted manner, signing for the Flowe-
ry Kingdom which he left, hoping to
better his fortunes in foreign country.
where the men were at work the
ground was soft. muddy you would
call it here. When it is muddy there
the ground is like mush two feet deep.
1t was soft that day and fifty or more
fresh colored fellows had been brought
in. In the afternoon the heat and the
air had their effects upon them and one
by one they fell. | saw one man hit
on the head by the excavating machine.
He was killed. The body was imme-
diately hoisted into the dumping tube.
sent through the machine, and that
was the last seen of him. You can see
some shocking sights down there.
Eat nightfall when the men are
through work for the day they begin a
nights debauch on whisky Struggled
into camp. Whisky is not allowed
around, but it is impossible for the
superintendents to enforce the rules.
The men will drink. II they did not |
believe they would go crazy. When
they become intoxicated nothing will
satisfy them but fight.
''If they would fight with their fists
il would not be so bad, but long sharp
knives are drawn and are red with
blood before sheathed again. Some
times the most horrible butcheries are
committed, and while one man is being
stabbed and hacked to pieces, the 9TH
ers stand off and jeer, and comment
ON the beauty of the contest.
'In big city you can see human
nature in bad forms, but the worst
forms of vice practiced in New York
and London and Paris are nowhere
when compared with what can be seen
every day on the isthmus.
After one of the contractors on the
railway shot one of the canal-workers
who attempted his life, they are very
careful how they treat the railway
hands. The latter go we'll armed, and
on the first motion made by any of the
blacks the pistol is drawn. If the con-
iuciors were not careful and fearless
the trains would be held up frequently.